LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Kentucky is switching to a single drug to carry out inmate executions, becoming the latest state to drop a three-drug mixture for lethal injections.
New regulations filed Friday also give the state two drug options, either the anesthetic sodium thiopental or the barbiturate pentobarbital.
Kentucky joins at least seven other states that use one drug in lethal injections.
The change means the state could resume lethal injections later this year.
A public hearing on the execution proposal is scheduled for Sept. 25 in Frankfort and the new regulations are expected to take effect 30 days later.
Justice and Public Safety Cabinet spokeswoman Jennifer Brislin declined to comment on the regulations.
The new regulations also allow the state to use two drugs - the anti-seizure medication midazolam, better known as Versed, and hydromophone, an analgesic known commonly as Dilaudad - if the drugs used in a single-drug execution are not available seven days before a scheduled lethal injection. Prison officials will have to notify the inmate a week before the execution which method will be used.
Under the new rules, if the warden determines the inmate has not died from the first dose of the chemicals, successive injections may be ordered until the inmate is deceased. If the inmate isn't dead after 10 minutes, the warden may order an injection of 60 mg of hydromorphone until death occurs.
The regulations cover a variety of details about how an execution is carried out, ranging from when an inmate is moved from death row to the holding cells where the execution chamber is housed to who pronounces the inmate dead and how.
Source: Associated Press, July 20, 2012
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